25 Crazy Facts About Famous People When They Were Teenagers

1Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King jr. was allowed to attend Morehouse college at the age of 15 due to a classroom shortage of students brought on by World War 2. He was still required to pass the college entrance exams which he did at only 15 years old.

2. 17-year-old Kenny Loggins wasn't going to be able to record his song "House at Pooh Corner" because Disney was enforcing their copyright to Winnie the Pooh. Upset, he mentioned this to his girlfriend, only to find out her dad was the president of Disney. He soon got the permission.

3. When 18-year-old Lady Gaga was studying at NYU, her classmates made a Facebook group called "Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous" where they bullied her and called her an "attention-wh*re". She dropped out after a year to pursue her music career full time.

4. 16-year-old Auli'i Cravalho was the last person out of hundreds to audition for the voice of Moana. Cravalho has stated that she was initially not going to audition for Moana because "there were already so many great submissions over YouTube."

5. Tony Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring finger in an accident at the age of 17. He ended up tuning his strings to lower pitches so that the thimbles he had fitted could bend the strings more easily. This lead to Black Sabbath's distinctive sound and the invention of heavy metal.

6Usain Bolt

While competing at the 2002 World Junior Championships at the age of 15, Usain Bolt became so nervous from the crowd's expectations that he put his shoes on the wrong feet. Nevertheless, he won the race, becoming the world's youngest junior gold medallist.

7. In 2000, 16-year-old Henry Cavill was an aspiring actor who had a chance encounter with Russell Crowe. Crowe sent him a gift box with a note saying "Dear Henry, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Russell." 13 years later, they starred together in “Man of Steel.”

10. In 1984, Cynthia Nixon made Broadway history by appearing in two Broadway plays at the same time. Her roles were short, and the two theaters were only two blocks away from each other, so she would run from one to the other. She was 18 years old.

11Ronaldinho

12. Jelly Roll Morton, at the age of 14 tricked his great-grandmother into believing he was a night watchman at a barrelhouse when in fact he was working as a piano player in a brothel. In that atmosphere, as he often sang smutty lyrics; he took the nickname “Jelly Roll”, which was slang for vagina.

15. Nikki Reed moved out of her mother's house and began living on her own at the age of 14. After the success of her movie "Thirteen", Reed returned to high school but dropped out again after a year because of "mothers who were sneaking into the school at lunchtime to confront and harass her about the film."

16Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr's first exposure to percussion happened when he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 13 and was admitted into a sanatorium for 2 years. The staff encouraged him to join the hospital band where he used a makeshift mallet to strike against the cabinets next to his bed.

18. Roseanne Barr was hit by a car at the age of 16, and the hood ornament went into her brain and through her skull. Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital, where she had a baby, which she gave up for adoption.

19. Gandhi married at the age of 13. Recalling his wedding, he once said: "We didn't know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." He first became a father at the age of 16 in spite of his wife spending most of her time at her mother’s.

20. When actress Delores Moran was 15 years-old she delivered a coffee to a man and never saw or heard from him again. He never mentioned her to anyone but, when he died over 20 years later, he had left her $300,000.

21Jamie Hyneman

Mythbusters' Jamie Hyneman ran away from home at the age of 14 and hitchhiked all over America. Since then, he has worked as a certified divemaster, wilderness survival expert, boat captain, linguist, pet shop owner, animal wrangler, machinist, concrete inspector, chef, and television show host.

22. When child actor Jackie Coogan turned 18, he found out that all his money had been spent by his mother who argued that every dollar a child makes before the age of 21 belongs to his parents. Coogan's law was then passed to protect child actors.

23. Andrew Jackson participated in the American Revolution informally at the age of 13 as a courier, survived being captured by the British, and was the only member of his family to survive the revolution, becoming an orphan at the age of 14.

25. 13-year-old Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) played on a BBC talent show in 1957. When asked what he wanted to do after schooling, Page said: "I want to do biological research and find a cure for cancer."

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